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Depression and Stroke

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Important health information for middle-aged women If you're living with depression, you may face an almost doubled risk of stroke.

That startling news comes from a new Australian study of more than 10-thousand women ages 47 to 52.

The women answered questions about their mental and physical health, medication use and lifestyle habits every three years from 1998 to 2010.

About 24 percent of the participants reported being depressed. 177 first-time strokes occurred during the study.

The researchers eliminated risk factors such as smoking, heart disease, diabetes and obesity and then analyzed the remaining data.

The results show depressed women were 1.9 times more likely to have a stroke than those who weren't depressed.

The researchers say it's still unclear why there may be a strong link here, but they are calling for greater awareness of depression as a preventable risk factor for stroke in younger middle-aged women.

I'm Dr. Cindy Haines of HealthDay TV with the latest breakthroughs from the world of medicine.

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